MOVIE REVIEW: Travelogue 'Paris Can Wait' is a dull journey

Friday

May 26, 2017 at 6:00 AM

Eleanor Coppola's film is cinematic equivalent of a picture postcard that is marred by the boring, elitist couple at its center.

By Al Alexander/For The Patriot Ledger

Eleanor Coppola has always been adept around a camera. For proof, just check out any five or 10 minutes of “Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse,” the Emmy-winning documentary she shot while on location with her husband, Francis, in the Philippines during the calamitous making of his masterpiece, “Apocalypse Now.” It’s guaranteed to blow you away – literally, especially when Typhoon Olga rages through.

For her feature debut, the highly caloric “Paris Can Wait,” the 81-year-old Coppola finds herself in much calmer waters, specifically the French Riviera. That’s where Hollywood producer Michael Lockwood (Alec Baldwin) and his gorgeous – but neglected – wife, Anne (Diane Lane), have gone to get away from it all in a lavish hotel room overlooking the Promenade de la Croisette in Cannes. But duty demands Michael’s immediate presence on set in Budapest, leaving Anne to fend for herself until they reunite in Paris later in the week. Enter Michael’s Rico Suave colleague, Jacques (Arnaud Viard), offering to drive the lovely Anne the 565-mile distance to the City of Light in his vintage blue Peugeot convertible. Michael, more interested in his cell than his woman, stupidly agrees.

What ensues is the cinematic equivalent of a picture postcard, as Coppola employs her typically keen eye in capturing the sights, sounds and exotic sustenance residing inside every nook and cranny nestled between points A and B. You’ll drool, you’ll salivate and you’ll likely be changing your summer vacation plans in the process. Coppola makes all of it look scrumptiously delicious. The only factor keeping her travelogue from receiving its just desserts is the omission of the key ingredient to lifting every romantic soufflé – a reason to care.

As Jacques and Anne wine and dine on a level fit for a king while stretching a 7-hour drive into a three-day dive into gluttony, Coppola never allows our pompous duo to – you know – relate to the common Joe blissfully unaware of the difference between escargot and crème brulee. You need a knife to cut through the elitism; and a fork to jab into your thigh to keep from falling asleep. That’s not to insinuate that Anne and Jacques are a dull couple; it’s a bonafide fact. Other than a rare moment when both confess to being devastated by deaths in their families, the conversations reside somewhere between the obvious and the inane. Jacques is particularly annoying, as each sentence flowing past his wine-drenched lips seems to begin with, “You Americans …” As if Americans were all a pack of rubes. OK, maybe we are, but we don’t need a dweeb like Jacques to remind us.

Coppola also takes advantage of her forum to heavily promote her son-in-law, Thomas Mars, the frontman for Phoenix, the Paris-based band that contributes four songs to a soundtrack out of step with a mood calling for something more evocative of the laissez-faire French way of life. But a road film like this one lives or dies on the ability of its two stars to engage and intrigue. And both come up woefully short. Part of it is due to the aloofness of their characters, card-carrying members of the upper one percent who thrive on the idea of being served $1,000 bottles of wine by the hoi polloi. Are we really expected to admire these prigs? Worship them? Take their wealth away and what are these people? Absolutely nothing; just vacant vessels blandly consuming overpriced food and drink.

So what are we to take away? One can only assume years of living in the lap of luxury have warped Coppola’s world view. Perhaps this is how she believes most of us live. But at a time when Earth is littered with genocide, terrorism and millions rousted from their homelands by murderous dictators, a movie like “Paris Can Wait” is virtually an insult to humanity. It’s almost as if you can hear Coppola cluelessly whispering to the throngs: Let them eat cake. PARIS CAN WAIT (PG for thematic elements, smoking and some language.) Cast includes Diane Lane, Arnaud Viard and Alec Baldwin. Grade: C